Wednesday, 5 December 2012

Hackgate - Varec Revisited - Dissent In The Ranks

The latest from my regular contributor.

Operation Varec is a little fuzzy round the edges. It has its own
formal 2010 inception date and terms of reference, but in some senses,
it pre-dates that and grew out of John Yates' response to The Guardian
article on the News of the World (NOTW) phone hacking, published July 8th 2009. This was Yates' 'Ratner moment' - undertaking a hasty fact-finding, presenting a same day, televised press statement, and later pronouncing on his own actions as "crap".

Lord
Justice Leveson took the view that Yates could have, perhaps should
have, excused himself from quasi-review of the phone
hacking investigation - given his longstanding friendship with former
NOTW executive, Neil Wallis. Yet, even though his premature 'no new
evidence, no re-investigation' press announcement was dismissive, should
Yates accrue a little more credit? After all, he didn't just let it
drop there.

A series of meetings was convened by Yates over the next few months to
establish if there were still skeletons in the closet of that original
2006 Goodman/Mulcaire investigation (Operation Caryatid). Amongst those attending were DCS Phil Williams and DS Keith Surtees
(investigating officers from 2006 operation), Steve Kavanagh (now
sucessor to Sue Akers overseeing Operations Weeting, Elveden, Tuleta),
DS Dean Haydon (Staff Officer to John Yates) and Sara Cheesley
(Specialist Operations Press Desk, MET Directorate of Public Affairs).
The
minutes of many of these are included as Exhibits to John Yates evidence to the Leveson Inquiry. They seem characterised by a hyper-defensive
mindset and a focus on presentational issues rather than evaluating the
2006 investigation. Much effort was dedicated to developing responses
to criticism of the Met from victims, government departments and Select
Committee - reputational risk priortised perhaps at the expense of a
more rigourous scrutiny of Operation Caryatid. There is extensive
background here in Sara Cheesley's witness statement to the Leveson Inquiry.

Recently, insights into those meetings have emerged which show a
distinct lack of agreement on what action was needed - dissent in the
ranks. Tom Watson MP (3rd Dec 2012) raised this issue in the House of Commons:

May I draw his attention to a very late submission to the Leveson
inquiry from Detective Chief Superintendent Surtees, which appeared on
the (Leveson) website this week? He states that in July 2009, he argued
internally that there was enough intelligence to warrant reopening the
investigation into phone hacking. The hon. Gentleman will know that at
no point was that raised with the Culture, Media and Sport Committee
during its inquiry. That might be something that he and the Committee
want to look at.

Surtees 2nd Leveson witness statement (here) clearly spells out his trenchant view that the phone-hacking Investigation SHOULD be re-opened. He
says that he also suggested that Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) be called in.

Both submissions appear to be tardy attempts to mitigate criticism of
the investigating officers contained in the Leveson Report. Presumably,
these MET-sanctioned statements were prompted by Section 13 letters.

On 1st September 2010, the New York Times published their exposé ' Tabloid Hack Attack on Royals, and Beyond'. On the face
of it, the article included new information, new informants, and new
victims of phone hacking - including Andy Coulson who was
then Director of Communications at 10 Downing Street. Obviously, a
disinterested and objective consideration of NOTW phone-hacking was
again necessary. This was a crucial point at which John Yates had
another chance to step back, recuse himself, and request that the
Commissioner task a different senior officer team without the baggage
and closeness to NOTW. However, Yates chose to have oversight of the
new enquiries - Operation Varec - himself. His own Staff Officer, Dean
Haydon, was appointed Senior Investigating Officer (SIO). Haydon had
been closely associated with the 2009 scrutiny as a member (and minutes
taker) of the Gold group meetings.

Started formally on 2nd September 2010, Varec's primary objective was

To assess whether allegations being made in the media since 1st
September 2010 provided any new evidence of criminal offences, namely
unlawful interception of communications, at News of the World, in
2005/6

It has been alleged that, within ten days of Varec commencing, a senior
MET officer contacted NOTW offering to supply information. (Daily Telegraph) The media stories addressed by Operation Varec covered the New York
Times story, Guardian follow up, and the Channel 4 Dispatches October
2010 documentary 'Tabloids, Tories and Telephone Hacking'. When Dean
Haydon contacted The Guardian for information, Alan Rusbridger replied in a scathing email

Nick Davies was further able to reveal incontrovertible evidence of the
involvement in phone hacking of other NoW reporters and executives: the
material is sitting in your own files,... Seeking to obtain evidence
from the Guardian should, it seems to us, be a matter of last resort
for the police... But the fact that three separate news organizations
have been able to uncover this story must give you hope that you, too,
could get to the bottom of it without too much trouble

Twenty one strands of inquiry by Operation Varec were followed, including:

Asking the New York Times to supply names of their anonymous sources. They declined.

Interviewing ex-NOTW's Sean Hoare. Contraversially, he was interviewed
under caution and so refused to answer any questions. Another ex-NOTW
journalist simply refused to speak with the police - let alone attend an
interview.

Other NOTW executives and journalists were
questioned about Operation Caryatid and refused to answer, denied any
knowledge, or (on legal advice) submitted pre-prepared written
statements.

Anonymous allegations were received by the MET,
implicating three NOTW journalists in phone hacking. Each was written
to by Operation Varec requesting information. None of the three
responded.

Colin Myler, NOTW Editor, was asked to provide a
list of journalists still employed since 2006 (in addition to those
above). Myler did so. Every one of the list of 19 journalists was
individually written to by Varec to ask for cooperation and interview.
Not a single one of the 19 even replied.

Unsurprisingly, Operation Varec came to the conclusion that they were
unable to obtain any admissible evidence to warrant re-investigating
phone- hacking at the News of the World. For details of the 21
investigatory strands, see here.

The genesis of Operation Varec still leaves some key questions unanswered:

On the first opportunity to recuse himself from the 2009 quasi-review,
why did John Yates not do so?

On the second opportunity to recuse himself from the 2010 investigation, Operation Varec, why did John Yates not do so?

Given the obduracy, obstructiveness and disregard shown by such a large
number of former and serving NOTW journalists, why did the MET continue
to collude with News International's thin veneer of cooperating with
the police?